Each year that I’m Blessed to live on this “Green Earth of Ours“, it seems to me that various holidays have lost their meaning ~ at least insofar as I remembered them to be from my childhood. Now, whether this ‘seemingly change’ is a Natural result of the ageing process, I don’t know. But what is quite clear to me is …. that Magic surrounding holidays have lost precisely that: the MAGIC!

Take Thanksgiving as a ‘for instance’. I recall when ‘Thanksgiving’ rolled around, you could actually ‘feel’ a Societal warmth and THANKSGIVING for the Blessings granted. Human LOVE washed the Land whether it be expressed in the form of families gathering around a TV to watch the NFL ‘Thanksgiving Day Game’; or the joy of family and friends gathering together to share in a bountiful meal; or seeing the Ladies get excited to storm the mall to catch ‘after Thanksgiving bargains’; or seeing the faces of kids ‘light up’ in them knowing that soon Ol’ Saint Nick would be making his Ride.

Today ~ really for the past 10 years or so ~ I don’t FEEL the MAGIC, baby!

I guess one reason ‘why’ is the fact stores and commercial concerns started to ‘blow right past’ Thanksgiving to get shoppers in the mood to BUY, BUY, and $pend some more for Christmas, huh! Too, all this ignoring of ‘Thanksgiving’ and a tightening Economy has a LOT of us

worrying about Tomorrow rather than remembering to stop and count our Blessings for what has already been gifted to each-and-every one of us.

Thanksgiving and Christmas has never been about religion or nationalism to me ~ NEVER; but instead about that MAGICAL FEELING that permeated in the air from late November to January of the following year. Where the trials and burdens of the year were set aside and replaced with ‘Fellowship & Good Cheer’. A TIME OUT from so-called Reality.

My photo taken in “Wildcat Canyon” in my Felicity. It resembles a little of the Shire, don’t you think!

“The Lord of the Rings” : Chapter One

We all have favorite Stories, huh! Stories that inspire or bring out our deepest feelings. Long ago I had seen the animated film called “The Hobbit”, but I had never read the book. Then, one night I decided to see a movie entitled “The Lord of the Rings” ~ a book I had never read either; and the rest, as they say, is history.

After having seen the first of the trilogy films, I decided to read the BOOK. And I must say I became a HUGE Fan of Tolkien and the wonderful world of “Middle Earth” that he created. A World that somehow captured so much of my Deeper Self … that it inspired me to travel to New Zealand and see with my own eyes so many places that were the Stars in all three of Peter Jackson’s masterful Work.

Chapter One in “The Lord of the Rings” actually Begins where Bilbo Baggins’ Story basically concludes. In fact, the Chapter is entitled “The Long-Expected Party”. A Birthday Party it was. Bilbo Baggins was about to turn eleventy-one (111), as well his favorite nephew Frodo would turn thirty-three … both on the same date: September 22nd.

As most Great Books begin, the location of Bilbo and Frodo’s home is the small hobbit village of Hobbiton. Humble. You see, even though these were small people that walked around in bare feet, I could RELATE to hobbits because I had grown up in a small Ohio town where everybody knew and gossiped about each other! So when the Story begins with Tolkien describing how the residents grew more curious with each passing day as they saw strange folks appear (dwarves, Gandalf, and queer relatives from outside Hobbiton), I could feel how the residents of Hobbiton gossiped non-stop of the legend of Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo!

Hobbits were ‘Simple Folk’! They were not the most formally Educated people on “Middle Earth”, but they were hard workers – honest (for the most part) – enjoyed their Families – and were primarily domestic farmers and craftsmen. That is why Bilbo seemed like such a ‘strang duck’ to the hobbits of the Shire. After all, Bilbo decades earlier had VANISHED (“The Hobbit”) and returned bearing untold wealth (according to the nosey hobbits of Hobbiton). Too, Bilbo LOVED to read and write; and he was often seen roaming the forests and roads seeking adventure.

Bilbo’s Birthday Party was magnificent! He ends the Party by doing something that would set the hobbits in attendance to wagging their tongues for YEARS afterward:

He told his guests “Goodbye!” ….. then he VANISHED!

His guests ~ many of whom were his Relatives ~ were insulted by Bilbo’s trick. Frodo, who had known about Bilbo’s little vanishing, simply either ‘played dumb’ or kindly told the guests that Mr. Bilbo Baggins had left.

Bilbo emerges back at his home and prepares to leave on a long-expected journey. Here he meets Gandalf the Wizard, and we the reader grow in our understanding of the Power of the Ring over Bilbo; why Bilbo feels the NEED to have ‘one last adventure’; Gandalf’s concern about the Ring; and later we see Frodo returning home and being given the advise to simply “Keep the Ring Secret … keep it Safe” by Gandalf.

Chapter 1 is a lovely Opening Chapter to “The Lord of the Rings”. As Bilbo exits his home (and the Shire) he turns and sings a little song:

While in New Zealand, I saw a cute little farmhouse …. set at the foot of the Southern Alps; or as I like to think of it: Tolkiens’ mighty Misty Mountains. And I visualized spending my Final Days owning a little farmhouse at the foot of the Misty Mountains; riding a beautiful white horse named Shadowfax with my great German Shepherd “Sting” always with me.

I’ve read “The Lord of the Rings” each year since I first watched the movie. So from time-to-time I’ll talk about the Story ~ Chapter by Chapter ~ from my perspective!

There’s this kat on Late Nite Talk Radio named Phil Hendrie. For years I used to think he was a Moderate Republican, but it wasn’t until the Primaries when he Endorsed Barack Obama for President that I took him a little more seriously. : )

Anyway. What makes Phil so delightful to listen to are these phone calls with Listeners; and I swear that I didn’t realize that many of these Calls are creative pieces that Phil has with HIMSELF! : )

And trust me ~ a LOT of the Real Callers that call the show have no idea that they’re responding to Calls that Phil has had with HIMSELF either! : )

After doing some Research on Phil, I discovered that he has been in broadcasting for quite some time in the LA Area. His Radio Shows are a blast and Creative as hell!

Nov. 26, 2008 | WASHINGTON — Over the weekend, a name you don’t hear very often anymore surfaced in news reports. A once-prominent politician, it turned out, was on something of a farewell tour, months after most people had stopped paying him much attention (and years after most people had written off his job performance).

Yes, try though you might to forget it, George W. Bush is still president. His weekend trip to Lima, Peru, was the last scheduled overseas visit of his eight years in office — and also about the most visible thing he’s done lately. (Standing on the Treasury Department steps with Hank Paulson the morning after he returned, he didn’t exactly make much news.) Bush vanished during the campaign, at the request of John McCain’s aides, and hasn’t really been back in the spotlight since. When he has emerged, during a time of economic crisis, to try to soothe the markets and the public, the results have been, um, counterproductive. His invisibility, and his failure to lead, have made the transition between this administration and the next that much more challenging for the man who’s taking his job in less than two months. Without any of the power of the office, Barack Obama is already finding himself responsible for reassuring the nation about its future — because Bush, apparently, can’t.

“There is only one president at a time,” President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday, in a line that’s becoming something of a mantra for him and his advisors. “That president is George W. Bush, and he will be president until I’m sworn in on Jan. 20.”

The sentiment might have been a little more convincing, though, if Obama hadn’t made that remark at his second news conference of the week; a third is scheduled for Wednesday, and at this rate, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if he popped up on TV to take questions between football games on Thursday. For 30 minutes every day, he’s the virtual president. The transition team is trying for balance between getting ready to govern and respecting the guy who’s (nominally) still in charge, but it’s not an easy balance to strike: At this point in the Bush era, the number of people who wish Obama could simply take over already — even suggesting, in the paper of record, that Bush just up and quit— is growing faster than the number of Fortune 500 companies applying for federal bailouts. “It’s not as if people don’t know Bush is still president; this is not a mystery to anybody,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “They just wish it wasn’t so.”

So Obama’steam is consulting with the current White House frequently, especially on economic matters, in an attempt to be simultaneously deferential and prepared. Bush spoke to Obama Monday, before the administration committed billions to saving Citigroup. Obamaaides advised administration officials that they’d be pushing for a stimulus package this week. But on other issues, the transition staff is giving Bush a wider berth — Obamastayed away from the G-20 summit in Washington this month, and avoided getting mixed up publicly in the lame-duck session of Congress (though he did ask lawmakers to have a stimulus bill ready for him to sign by the time he takes office, and Democratic aides on Capitol Hill say they’re already hearing from Obama’s staff more than they do from Bush’s). “People, and the market, are making decisions that go beyond Jan. 20,” a senior transition aide said. “We’re trying to send the signals [about the future] but not have any confusion about what’s happening before Jan. 20.”

The level of cooperation between the transition organization and the White House may be unprecedented, especially for presidents coming from different parties (and considering that Obama’s entire campaign theme could basically be boiled down to, “Had enough of that other guy yet?”). Partly, that’s because Obama’s transition team started to plan for the changeover in August. “This is a very organized transition,” said John Burke, a political science professor at the University of Vermont who studies transitions. “They were much more organized during the pre-election period than any transition that we’ve seen.”

That planning took on greater urgency when the financial system nearly collapsed in October. “His feeling — particularly as the fall went on and the deterioration in the economy grew — was that there wouldn’t be time to sit around, that it was going to be very important to be ready,” an Obama campaign advisor said. The transition planning was cordoned off from the campaign strategy sessions, but once Obamawon, it wasn’t hard to start integrating the staff from the campaign with the staff that was already looking ahead to January.

If Bush wasn’t the lamest of lame ducks, of course, it might be easier to manage the transition period. But since his little dance routine while waiting for McCain in March (ahead of their only lengthy joint public event together this year), the current president has been mostly missing in action. With approval ratings hovering around 25 percent, that’s not entirely surprising; when only one in four Americans still likes you, how effectively could you push anyagenda? But even Bush allies say he’s left something of a leadership gap that Obamahas little choice but to fill. “Part of the problem we’ve had withthe financial crisis is we haven’t had a visible leader of the country on economic issues for a long time,” said Vin Weber, a former House member from Minnesota and now a Republican power broker who’s in frequent contact with the White House. “We have not had — in my judgment — a national leader speaking to the economic crisis for months and months and months. Now we have a new president, and he can fill that void.”

And at some level, even Bush’s own aides may realize that. Weber said administration officials quickly got over an initial dust-upover leaks from the Obama team after the 43rd and 44th presidents met two weeks ago. Now the White House staff is “by and large very impressed” by the Obama transition operation, he said. (Thanks to a relatively orderly election, it’s light-years ahead of Bush’s own transition — by this time in 2000, the Supreme Court hadn’t even made Bush president-elect yet.) Obama aides say the same thing about the cooperation they’re getting from Bush officials.

Of course, eight years is a long time for any president to stick around, even popular ones. But these past eight years have left most Americans with a particular urge to move on. “That sense of impatience on the part of everybody — it’s very strong this time,” the Obama campaign advisorsaid. Fortunately, there are only 55 days left to wait for a change. And both Bush and Obama seem to be doing whatever they can to speed things along.

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As I’ve been watching Barack VERY CLOSELY since right before the Iowa Caucus in January ’08, I’ve noticed several things about the man: 1) Barack is EXTREMELY CONFIDENT ~ bordering the arrogant (just bordering); 2) he’s Blessed with a keen Mind that feeds off the curious; 3) behind the disarming smile is a cold blooded pragmatist; and 4) while not necessarily religious, Barack has a sense of his place in history.

I’ve never met the man, but the above qualities are those I’ve pick up along the way. Too, the above qualities are not necessarily ‘bad’ or negative to have in a President!

Keep in mind, Folks. This man BEAT one of the most powerful political machines in the “The Clintons”, at a time when he was barely known (gave a great speech at the 2004 DNC, then shortly thereafter elected to the U.S. Senate). Then he WON handily over a War Hero (McCain) … Defeated the crippling attacks against him from Limbaugh, Hannity, the GOP, Right wingers, and Racists via Reverend Wright-Bill Ayers-alleged ‘Muslim Connections’.

He beat back it all, baby! So why wouldn’t Barack think he can’t ‘Walk on Water’, hum? : )

As long as Barack can do in Office what several past Democratic Presidents couldn’t do, and that is KEEP HIS PANTS and ZIPPER UP <g>: We’ll all be in on a Grand Ride!